Your parents likely didn't speak latin or greek either. These people speak the language today. Many speak spanish as well, but I feel the issue here is that Microsoft and the Chilean government's interpretation of their language could easily fall short, and including the Mapuche people in the process wold have been much more considerate.
I feel that using the word 'barbaric' is merely a way of demeaning another way of living. It's entirely possible that people from other cultures may view your way of life as barbaric. Money, urban development, social separatism, and a disconnection from nature must be shocking to those who live in cooperative, sustainable communities in harmony with the earth.
The problem was that this language (Babel-17) had no concept of "I". Anyone who learned the language subconciously started acting occasionally in a destructive way.
mod that up.
This actually seems to have happened, more or less, with the Andean cultures in modern northern Chile, Bolivia, and Peru. The people possess a more community/social obligation based, non-monetary economy and society where complementarity and reciprocity are key features. Their integration with a culture that uses money and has a religion that separates god from ourselves has been quite difficult. The self-serving, "I" was not nearly as prevalent among Andean cultures before contact with and domination by the Spanish.
just noticed an error in my response. There is a mention of their reasoning in TFA, the fact that Mapuche people were left out of the actual decision process and the translation went ahead anyway. I still feel more background information would help, but this could be another example of other people trying to decide what is right for the Mapuche without consulting any of them first.
On the surface, it may seem quite absurd. However in TFA, I couldn't find any specific mention of the motives behind the Mapuche council's objection. Note that Mapuche leaders do not necessarily represent the will of every member of the tribe. However if we assume that there is support from the general populace, my guess would be that:
1. The Mapuche and Andean people have a history of being lied to and manipulated by the Chilean government, usually in the interest of integrating them more within the European society and economy, often resulting in people being forcibly removed from their ancestral home territory so the land can be exploited for corporate gain. As a result there could be a general distrust for any type of corporation, especially those from the US. Mining and logging companies, for example, have been a major cause of displacement and environmental destruction, which has deeply affected the sentiments of native peoples toward capitalistic enterprise.
2. There is a fear of the bastardization of their language by Microsoft incorporating and "standardizing" it. It could be that many are satisfied using Spanish language software from Microsoft.
3. Remember that traditionally the native people of South America have a completely different world view from those of European descent. Society, religion, economy, technology are all perceived differently. It may be that the people actually don't want the opportunity of being exposed to this software in their native language. We may think it's "what's best for them," but really how can you or I decide that? The history of doing what we think is best for an indigenous culture of the Americas has been that of moving them into our world without really understanding that they may really want to keep their way of life, and "progress" as we often define it (e.g. technology) is really not beneficial from their perspective.
To many, this may seem arrogant, or a grab for money. Without hearing a proper explanation of the motives behind this resistance, I feel nothing can be concluded. I think it's important to realize that other cultures view the predominant society from a different perspective and may see further integration as a threat to their way of living.
I can't tell exactly when the keyboard itself was made, the label on the bottom says 1984, but the computer itself I believe was from 1986. I received two of them from an out of business gas station. Both were IBM Personal System/2, a 386 server and a 286 front desk machine connected by a 50 ft null modem serial cable. Both were dual boot Windows 3.1 and Microsoft Xenix. One had a 20MB HDD, the other a 40MB hdd, with platters about 7" in diameter. The keyboard indeed has a PS/2 connector (with a 10ft curly cable), as the IBM Personal System/2 was the first platform to sport the connection, hence the name.
The computers were literally falling apart, and horribly dirty from gas station grime, but the keyboard lives on despite being dropped many times and transported between more than 6 houses. I used the towers for target practice. I remember barely being able to get a.45 slug through those suckers. They probably weighed over 50lbs each with all the junk inside them (huge PSU, something like a foot long MCA 300 baud modem, various extra peripherals, and of course the MASSIVE HDD)
I think it's something akin to the preference of vinyl recordings over CD or other digital methods. Purely a personal aesthetic. I love my keyboard taken from an IBM PS/2 gas station server. I've had it for 10 years now and the thing was made in 1986. I dread the day when I may have to purchase another desktop keyboard. For me, even Apple or Happy Hacking keyboards don't come close to the nice springy click of the IBM PS/2 board.
This exact course is a requirement of the California state university system. It goes by the name of "software engineering" at Humboldt State University.
The CS major is quite new there, and in the midst of terrible funding due to incompetent upper level administration (president richmond, I'm talking to you), the CS department is making an effort to prepare graduates.
The SE class involves a semester long project integrated with lectures covering basic topics regarding the development cycle. On thing I learned is that the classic waterfall cycle is unrealistic and never works, but still provides a decent model to follow loosely.
One major issue with the course was the chosen medium: a mysql database with a php interface, that supposedly could have served a real purpose for the CS department. It was a great idea, except that DB and web programming are not prerequisites for the course, nor are either requirements for the CS degree. Therefore, some students entered with existing knowledge of the subject, some with none. We also encountered numerous problems using the db and php software available on campus, and were not in control of our own servers. The result was some barely working prototypes but a hell of a lot learned.
I would say that software dev is an extremely important subject withing the CS curriculum. One suggestion I have is that the course may be more beneficial if taught in two semesters, the first devoted to theory, the second to practice. Or alternatively a concurrent lecture/lab. Caution must be taken with the chosen project and the capabilities of the students, but regardless, the course helps prepare students for the "real world," which is often lacking in CS degrees.
I think these are the words for which I have been searching quite some time. You just hit the nail on the head with that comment.
US politics is only a small part of a complex means of existence that, believe it or not, some people don't subscribe to. Many would view this as a constant cultural invasion.
Should people stop eating beef because of the significance of cows in Hinduism?
I would say so, not simply because hinduism holds cows as sacred but that commercial cattle farming is one of the most destructive industries in the world, specifically in the United States.
See Power Steer by Michael Pollan for more information.
Wow. I have never lived in a metropolitan area before now, and I am constantly in shock at how amazing the public transit is here in Santiago, Chile. Buses run pretty much 24/7 365, and the subway runs from 8 am to 10:30 pm. A ride on either bus or train is about $.80 US.
I have found the bus system in Mexico to be astounding, and affordable as well. Also being able to hop in the back of some random person's truck is really fun but the return ride is not always guaranteed.
Though I don't actually buy DVDs or CDs, I've no sympathy for this predicament, but I do understand how frustrating it is to be far away from a place you want to go. That's what small, local stores are for. You support someone not directly affiliated with a massive, multinational corporation, and don't waste time. Think of the extra money spent at small stores as a compensation for not spending 2 hours getting to WalMart and back.
Of course everyone's predicament is different. It may be worthwhile to stop and decide whether you really need that snazzy new thneed, or if you can be just as happy without.
Stealing cars, dealing drugs, killing and maiming police and civilians is ok... but sex? OH MY GOD NO! WON'T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE CHILDREN??? Sex is certainly not an acceptable or natural activity. Something must be done.
But what if the iPod was WiFi enabled, and also featured iTunes music sharing capability. If there were enough hot spots in a city, and enough people had iPods, I can imagine it would be fun. There wouldn't be much of a need for crappy commercial radio if there were thousands of songs available on demand for free with the purchase of an iPod...
The destruction of the redwoods was being caused by MAXXAM corporation (parading as Pacific Lumber, Co) as they own many thousands of acres of redwoods and are determined to rape them for all they're worth. Funny, I didn't need any fancy gizmos to figure that out, I just had to take a trip to Freshwater, CA and watch the carnage.
Sounds like they managed to recreate the Macintosh buying experience quite well. The only difference is that you payed $2000 for a 15.2" 1.8ghz and I payed $2400 for 12.1" 866mhz, but they both were POS. I bought my 12" in January. Many parts of it were defective or broke within a few days: the keyboard, lid (warped), hard drive, RAM and motherboard were all faulty. After "waiting on some parts" for a month or so, they sent me a new one. And they best part about it: Apple's refund policy states that you can get a refund within 30 days after purchase. sounds fine, right? well I received my computer over 30 days after I purchased it, so no refunds for me, period. Gotta love the huge discrepancy between marketing and reality, while something may seem good on paper and as a demo technology, that does not guarantee its success once a product leaves the door.
She might be using Slackintosh. But I think there's about an ice cube's chance in hell that anyone's mom is using Slackware, let alone Slackintosh on a new G4 power Mac...
maybe you should have looked at UPGRADE.TXT located in the root directory of the Slackware CD-ROM, it is as informative as it is useful. Can you guess why? Because Patrick Volkerding wrote it, and he hopes that you read it before trying to upgrade by running the Slackware installer, which, by the way, has nothing to do with upgrading.
overall I got the feeling that the whole thing was just slapped together.
Strangely enough, I got the feeling that Slackware 9.0 is an extremely well integrated and refined operating system, one which undoubtedly took many hours of hard labor to assemble.
By the way, the system I am currently running is running Slackware 9.0, upgraded from 8.0, which was upgraded from 7.1 by following the instructions in UPGRADE.TXT (here's a little trivia, how many people upgraded from Slack 4 to 7? that's right, none. I was initially very afraid of upgraded because of the strict warning in 7.0's UPGRADE.TXT, but it has worked fine ever since). Everything works perfectly. But as they say, different strokes for different folks. Some prefer the simplicity of Microsoft Windows. On the other end of the spectrum, some prefer the simplicity of Slackware Linux. What 'sucks' to you probably 'rocks' to someone else. I think Windows is shit, but for some reason, millions of other people seem do disagree. Oh what a tragedy.
Ashcroft in the foreground and breast in the bakground (what is it with you americans and breasts anyway)
Oh, I don't know... Maybe it's because I relied on them for my very survival since a very early age, like, since birth? Everyone is obsessed with breasts. Men want them. Women want them. Breasts are absolutely beautiful. What does this have to do with anything?
And as far as Ashcroft, he is a fuck. A disgusting, evil piece of shit. any decision he makes is against the wishes of the good people of the United States. He needs to be punished for his crimes, as should all of the president's lackeys (john poindexter, you're a fucking war criminal, you bastard).
Kind of a strange company... They seem to be having a bit of a rocky beginning, but their products are enticing. Hardware support is a little lacking, but most of the important stuff is supported.
I didn't say that I am a stickler per se, I said that my personality type generally is. no one fits a typecast 100%, and certainly no one is perfect. However, writing loose to mean lose is WAY higher than nevermind on the "don't make this mistake if you don't want to look a fool" scale, its a whole different word with a completely different meaning. Nevermind may be grammatically incorrect, but hey, at least I didn't spell it (them) wrong!
That's why there's iTerm. Has most everything you would expect from a real terminal emulator, including tabs (yay!)
I was impressed with some aspects of OS X, but overall it doesn't offer much to me over linux, aside from a new UNIX to learn. Some things just plain irked me, like the fact that chsh is included with the OS, yet it does nothing. This is because apple decided all user information should be controlled by NetInfo Manager. Glad they told me. Anyway, despite minor problems (which are present in every OS, some more than others) using OS X was a fairly pleasant experience. However, purchasing a computer from Apple was not. After receiving an extremely defective powerbook and waiting 4 weeks for them to say "well gee, looks like we can't fix it. We'll give you a new one" which is the exact same thing I asked for 4 frickin' weeks ago. Hmm.. I think I'll take a refund and spend my money on something other than an overpriced, broken toy, thank you.
That sort of thing doesn't really carry over to informal social interactions, as your example shows. When dealing with women it's generally a good idea to forget any nitpicks like the post above and stick with "It's ok, honey. At least you've still got huge... tracts o' land!"
I have to agree with the parent poster. I had the same response to the message in question when I came upon the word rediculous: I cringed. (mostly because I got this mental image of some yahoo exclaiming "that's REEEE-dikulus!"). There are certain spelling and grammar errors that totally ruin my respect for a person's argument, regardless of said argument's quality, and spelling ridiculous with an 'e' is certainly one of them. Even worse is using shorthand like u for you, r for are, plz, etc. This isn't irc, people, you have time to spell the full words.
I've noticed that the people who make these mistakes the most frequently are also the ones who say "whatever, you know what I meant" when you correct them. Yes, I may know what you mean, but it still irks me to have to deal with it. I have a friend who does shit like that all the time, but he substitutes related words when speaking (saying SCSI when he means IDE, calling brands by some other company's brand name and expecting me to know what he's talking about, etc). It really frustrates me to talk with someone like that, because it shows 1. a lack of knowledge on the subject and 2. a lack of caring about the correctness of what you say. This is probably because my personality type (INTP) is generally very concept oriented, but a stickler on syntax. In order for a concept to be properly conveyed, the syntax must be correct, so that both can be associated properly in the brain, and recalled correctly when the syntax is seen at a later time. Correct, consistent syntax makes it MUCH easier to recall the concept if you see the same words in the future. This is why mathematics, physics, chemistry, computer programming, etc, work. If your math professor told you a formula one day, then wrote it down wrong the next time and said "whatever, you get the idea", you wouldn't be very happy, now would you?
Oh well... at least the poster didn't spell ridiculous wrong more than once-- oh wait. Nevermind.
This is exactly how I feel. I just purchased a new powerbook because I have been looking for a laptop to complement my linux desktop for a while, and now that apple sells 3 types of PB's (affordable, less affordable, and #!@#$%#@!!!!), and they are currentlty some of the best laptops in the world, in my opinion. However, I would NEVER fork out the dough for a Mac desktop. Their simply not worth the money. As for XP... I have gained an appreciation for it because of its driver support and general not-so-stupidness (as opposed to win98), but still I say fuck off to Microsoft, they offer nothing to me.
1992: Parents purchased a Macintosh LC. Worst. Computer. Ever. Me: "Fuck this shit I'm never buying a goddamn Mac again!!!!!" 1997: Parents (finally) purchase a PC from a local shop. Windows hard locks and corrupts video driver within first hour of use. Me: "Fuck this shit I'm never using goddamn Windows again!!!!" 1998: Purchase UMAX prebuilt for $900. Absolute crap. Me: "Fuck this shit I'm never buying a prebuilt again!!!" 1998: (a month later) returned UMAX, spent the $900 building 1337 Pentium-II 400 box. Installed Linux. (sigh of relief). Finally I am happy... 2000: Huh What? OS X is Unix based? Hmm... 2003: Powerbook for ~$2000?? w00t! Purchased 12.1" PB, waiting for it to be shipped (2 to 4 weeks... grumble grumble).
My PII is still runnin' strong after 5 years, a testament to the saying 'If you want something done right, do it yourself.' I can't exactly 'do it myself' with a laptop, so here's to hoping Apple can do it right this time.
Your parents likely didn't speak latin or greek either. These people speak the language today. Many speak spanish as well, but I feel the issue here is that Microsoft and the Chilean government's interpretation of their language could easily fall short, and including the Mapuche people in the process wold have been much more considerate.
I feel that using the word 'barbaric' is merely a way of demeaning another way of living. It's entirely possible that people from other cultures may view your way of life as barbaric. Money, urban development, social separatism, and a disconnection from nature must be shocking to those who live in cooperative, sustainable communities in harmony with the earth.
The problem was that this language (Babel-17) had no concept of "I". Anyone who learned the language subconciously started acting occasionally in a destructive way.
mod that up.
This actually seems to have happened, more or less, with the Andean cultures in modern northern Chile, Bolivia, and Peru. The people possess a more community/social obligation based, non-monetary economy and society where complementarity and reciprocity are key features. Their integration with a culture that uses money and has a religion that separates god from ourselves has been quite difficult. The self-serving, "I" was not nearly as prevalent among Andean cultures before contact with and domination by the Spanish.
Footnote:
just noticed an error in my response. There is a mention of their reasoning in TFA, the fact that Mapuche people were left out of the actual decision process and the translation went ahead anyway. I still feel more background information would help, but this could be another example of other people trying to decide what is right for the Mapuche without consulting any of them first.
On the surface, it may seem quite absurd. However in TFA, I couldn't find any specific mention of the motives behind the Mapuche council's objection. Note that Mapuche leaders do not necessarily represent the will of every member of the tribe. However if we assume that there is support from the general populace, my guess would be that:
1. The Mapuche and Andean people have a history of being lied to and manipulated by the Chilean government, usually in the interest of integrating them more within the European society and economy, often resulting in people being forcibly removed from their ancestral home territory so the land can be exploited for corporate gain. As a result there could be a general distrust for any type of corporation, especially those from the US. Mining and logging companies, for example, have been a major cause of displacement and environmental destruction, which has deeply affected the sentiments of native peoples toward capitalistic enterprise.
2. There is a fear of the bastardization of their language by Microsoft incorporating and "standardizing" it. It could be that many are satisfied using Spanish language software from Microsoft.
3. Remember that traditionally the native people of South America have a completely different world view from those of European descent. Society, religion, economy, technology are all perceived differently. It may be that the people actually don't want the opportunity of being exposed to this software in their native language. We may think it's "what's best for them," but really how can you or I decide that? The history of doing what we think is best for an indigenous culture of the Americas has been that of moving them into our world without really understanding that they may really want to keep their way of life, and "progress" as we often define it (e.g. technology) is really not beneficial from their perspective.
To many, this may seem arrogant, or a grab for money. Without hearing a proper explanation of the motives behind this resistance, I feel nothing can be concluded. I think it's important to realize that other cultures view the predominant society from a different perspective and may see further integration as a threat to their way of living.
I can't tell exactly when the keyboard itself was made, the label on the bottom says 1984, but the computer itself I believe was from 1986. I received two of them from an out of business gas station. Both were IBM Personal System/2, a 386 server and a 286 front desk machine connected by a 50 ft null modem serial cable. Both were dual boot Windows 3.1 and Microsoft Xenix. One had a 20MB HDD, the other a 40MB hdd, with platters about 7" in diameter. The keyboard indeed has a PS/2 connector (with a 10ft curly cable), as the IBM Personal System/2 was the first platform to sport the connection, hence the name.
.45 slug through those suckers. They probably weighed over 50lbs each with all the junk inside them (huge PSU, something like a foot long MCA 300 baud modem, various extra peripherals, and of course the MASSIVE HDD)
The computers were literally falling apart, and horribly dirty from gas station grime, but the keyboard lives on despite being dropped many times and transported between more than 6 houses. I used the towers for target practice. I remember barely being able to get a
I think it's something akin to the preference of vinyl recordings over CD or other digital methods. Purely a personal aesthetic. I love my keyboard taken from an IBM PS/2 gas station server. I've had it for 10 years now and the thing was made in 1986. I dread the day when I may have to purchase another desktop keyboard. For me, even Apple or Happy Hacking keyboards don't come close to the nice springy click of the IBM PS/2 board.
This exact course is a requirement of the California state university system. It goes by the name of "software engineering" at Humboldt State University.
The CS major is quite new there, and in the midst of terrible funding due to incompetent upper level administration (president richmond, I'm talking to you), the CS department is making an effort to prepare graduates.
The SE class involves a semester long project integrated with lectures covering basic topics regarding the development cycle. On thing I learned is that the classic waterfall cycle is unrealistic and never works, but still provides a decent model to follow loosely.
One major issue with the course was the chosen medium: a mysql database with a php interface, that supposedly could have served a real purpose for the CS department. It was a great idea, except that DB and web programming are not prerequisites for the course, nor are either requirements for the CS degree. Therefore, some students entered with existing knowledge of the subject, some with none. We also encountered numerous problems using the db and php software available on campus, and were not in control of our own servers. The result was some barely working prototypes but a hell of a lot learned.
I would say that software dev is an extremely important subject withing the CS curriculum. One suggestion I have is that the course may be more beneficial if taught in two semesters, the first devoted to theory, the second to practice. Or alternatively a concurrent lecture/lab. Caution must be taken with the chosen project and the capabilities of the students, but regardless, the course helps prepare students for the "real world," which is often lacking in CS degrees.
I think these are the words for which I have been searching quite some time. You just hit the nail on the head with that comment. US politics is only a small part of a complex means of existence that, believe it or not, some people don't subscribe to. Many would view this as a constant cultural invasion.
Should people stop eating beef because of the significance of cows in Hinduism?
I would say so, not simply because hinduism holds cows as sacred but that commercial cattle farming is one of the most destructive industries in the world, specifically in the United States.
See Power Steer by Michael Pollan for more information.
Wow. I have never lived in a metropolitan area before now, and I am constantly in shock at how amazing the public transit is here in Santiago, Chile. Buses run pretty much 24/7 365, and the subway runs from 8 am to 10:30 pm. A ride on either bus or train is about $.80 US.
I have found the bus system in Mexico to be astounding, and affordable as well. Also being able to hop in the back of some random person's truck is really fun but the return ride is not always guaranteed.
Though I don't actually buy DVDs or CDs, I've no sympathy for this predicament, but I do understand how frustrating it is to be far away from a place you want to go. That's what small, local stores are for. You support someone not directly affiliated with a massive, multinational corporation, and don't waste time. Think of the extra money spent at small stores as a compensation for not spending 2 hours getting to WalMart and back.
Of course everyone's predicament is different. It may be worthwhile to stop and decide whether you really need that snazzy new thneed, or if you can be just as happy without.
Stealing cars, dealing drugs, killing and maiming police and civilians is ok... but sex? OH MY GOD NO! WON'T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE CHILDREN??? Sex is certainly not an acceptable or natural activity. Something must be done.
But what if the iPod was WiFi enabled, and also featured iTunes music sharing capability. If there were enough hot spots in a city, and enough people had iPods, I can imagine it would be fun. There wouldn't be much of a need for crappy commercial radio if there were thousands of songs available on demand for free with the purchase of an iPod...
The destruction of the redwoods was being caused by MAXXAM corporation (parading as Pacific Lumber, Co) as they own many thousands of acres of redwoods and are determined to rape them for all they're worth. Funny, I didn't need any fancy gizmos to figure that out, I just had to take a trip to Freshwater, CA and watch the carnage.
Microsoft invented su? I never would have guessed... :wq
Sounds like they managed to recreate the Macintosh buying experience quite well. The only difference is that you payed $2000 for a 15.2" 1.8ghz and I payed $2400 for 12.1" 866mhz, but they both were POS.
I bought my 12" in January. Many parts of it were defective or broke within a few days: the keyboard, lid (warped), hard drive, RAM and motherboard were all faulty. After "waiting on some parts" for a month or so, they sent me a new one. And they best part about it: Apple's refund policy states that you can get a refund within 30 days after purchase. sounds fine, right? well I received my computer over 30 days after I purchased it, so no refunds for me, period. Gotta love the huge discrepancy between marketing and reality, while something may seem good on paper and as a demo technology, that does not guarantee its success once a product leaves the door.
She might be using Slackintosh. But I think there's about an ice cube's chance in hell that anyone's mom is using Slackware, let alone Slackintosh on a new G4 power Mac...
maybe you should have looked at UPGRADE.TXT located in the root directory of the Slackware CD-ROM, it is as informative as it is useful. Can you guess why? Because Patrick Volkerding wrote it, and he hopes that you read it before trying to upgrade by running the Slackware installer, which, by the way, has nothing to do with upgrading.
overall I got the feeling that the whole thing was just slapped together.
Strangely enough, I got the feeling that Slackware 9.0 is an extremely well integrated and refined operating system, one which undoubtedly took many hours of hard labor to assemble.
By the way, the system I am currently running is running Slackware 9.0, upgraded from 8.0, which was upgraded from 7.1 by following the instructions in UPGRADE.TXT (here's a little trivia, how many people upgraded from Slack 4 to 7? that's right, none. I was initially very afraid of upgraded because of the strict warning in 7.0's UPGRADE.TXT, but it has worked fine ever since). Everything works perfectly. But as they say, different strokes for different folks. Some prefer the simplicity of Microsoft Windows. On the other end of the spectrum, some prefer the simplicity of Slackware Linux. What 'sucks' to you probably 'rocks' to someone else. I think Windows is shit, but for some reason, millions of other people seem do disagree. Oh what a tragedy.
Ashcroft in the foreground and breast in the bakground (what is it with you americans and breasts anyway)
Oh, I don't know... Maybe it's because I relied on them for my very survival since a very early age, like, since birth? Everyone is obsessed with breasts. Men want them. Women want them. Breasts are absolutely beautiful. What does this have to do with anything?
And as far as Ashcroft, he is a fuck. A disgusting, evil piece of shit. any decision he makes is against the wishes of the good people of the United States. He needs to be punished for his crimes, as should all of the president's lackeys (john poindexter, you're a fucking war criminal, you bastard).
the Present.
Soooooo Awesome.
Kind of a strange company... They seem to be having a bit of a rocky beginning, but their products are enticing. Hardware support is a little lacking, but most of the important stuff is supported.
I didn't say that I am a stickler per se, I said that my personality type generally is. no one fits a typecast 100%, and certainly no one is perfect. However, writing loose to mean lose is WAY higher than nevermind on the "don't make this mistake if you don't want to look a fool" scale, its a whole different word with a completely different meaning. Nevermind may be grammatically incorrect, but hey, at least I didn't spell it (them) wrong!
That's why there's iTerm. Has most everything you would expect from a real terminal emulator, including tabs (yay!)
I was impressed with some aspects of OS X, but overall it doesn't offer much to me over linux, aside from a new UNIX to learn. Some things just plain irked me, like the fact that chsh is included with the OS, yet it does nothing. This is because apple decided all user information should be controlled by NetInfo Manager. Glad they told me. Anyway, despite minor problems (which are present in every OS, some more than others) using OS X was a fairly pleasant experience. However, purchasing a computer from Apple was not. After receiving an extremely defective powerbook and waiting 4 weeks for them to say "well gee, looks like we can't fix it. We'll give you a new one" which is the exact same thing I asked for 4 frickin' weeks ago. Hmm.. I think I'll take a refund and spend my money on something other than an overpriced, broken toy, thank you.
That sort of thing doesn't really carry over to informal social interactions, as your example shows. When dealing with women it's generally a good idea to forget any nitpicks like the post above and stick with "It's ok, honey. At least you've still got huge... tracts o' land!"
I have to agree with the parent poster. I had the same response to the message in question when I came upon the word rediculous: I cringed. (mostly because I got this mental image of some yahoo exclaiming "that's REEEE-dikulus!"). There are certain spelling and grammar errors that totally ruin my respect for a person's argument, regardless of said argument's quality, and spelling ridiculous with an 'e' is certainly one of them. Even worse is using shorthand like u for you, r for are, plz, etc. This isn't irc, people, you have time to spell the full words.
I've noticed that the people who make these mistakes the most frequently are also the ones who say "whatever, you know what I meant" when you correct them. Yes, I may know what you mean, but it still irks me to have to deal with it. I have a friend who does shit like that all the time, but he substitutes related words when speaking (saying SCSI when he means IDE, calling brands by some other company's brand name and expecting me to know what he's talking about, etc). It really frustrates me to talk with someone like that, because it shows 1. a lack of knowledge on the subject and 2. a lack of caring about the correctness of what you say. This is probably because my personality type (INTP) is generally very concept oriented, but a stickler on syntax. In order for a concept to be properly conveyed, the syntax must be correct, so that both can be associated properly in the brain, and recalled correctly when the syntax is seen at a later time. Correct, consistent syntax makes it MUCH easier to recall the concept if you see the same words in the future. This is why mathematics, physics, chemistry, computer programming, etc, work. If your math professor told you a formula one day, then wrote it down wrong the next time and said "whatever, you get the idea", you wouldn't be very happy, now would you?
Oh well... at least the poster didn't spell ridiculous wrong more than once-- oh wait. Nevermind.
This is exactly how I feel. I just purchased a new powerbook because I have been looking for a laptop to complement my linux desktop for a while, and now that apple sells 3 types of PB's (affordable, less affordable, and #!@#$%#@!!!!), and they are currentlty some of the best laptops in the world, in my opinion. However, I would NEVER fork out the dough for a Mac desktop. Their simply not worth the money. As for XP... I have gained an appreciation for it because of its driver support and general not-so-stupidness (as opposed to win98), but still I say fuck off to Microsoft, they offer nothing to me.
1992: Parents purchased a Macintosh LC. Worst. Computer. Ever. Me: "Fuck this shit I'm never buying a goddamn Mac again!!!!!"
1997: Parents (finally) purchase a PC from a local shop. Windows hard locks and corrupts video driver within first hour of use. Me: "Fuck this shit I'm never using goddamn Windows again!!!!"
1998: Purchase UMAX prebuilt for $900. Absolute crap. Me: "Fuck this shit I'm never buying a prebuilt again!!!"
1998: (a month later) returned UMAX, spent the $900 building 1337 Pentium-II 400 box. Installed Linux. (sigh of relief). Finally I am happy...
2000: Huh What? OS X is Unix based? Hmm...
2003: Powerbook for ~$2000?? w00t! Purchased 12.1" PB, waiting for it to be shipped (2 to 4 weeks... grumble grumble).
My PII is still runnin' strong after 5 years, a testament to the saying 'If you want something done right, do it yourself.' I can't exactly 'do it myself' with a laptop, so here's to hoping Apple can do it right this time.